One man recalls his misadventures with the Sainsbury's Basics food range, gets a few from his friends, and invents a few new ones.

Saturday, 23 March 2013

Rice Cooker Risotto

Mention chicken breasts and the last thing you would probably picture would be chicken breasts with skin on them. So you could imagine my surprise when I saw that Sainsbury's have expanded their line yet again to include, amongst other things, skin-on chicken fillets. I was trying to look for ways to get rid of my bottle of Sainsbury's Basics White Wine as well as what is left of my rice before my household leaves my current flat. A risotto with chicken, courgette and some sort of salted meat for flavour sounded promising, so I decided to pick this up along with several other groceries.

While I was at it, I thought it would be interesting to see if I could make a risotto using the rice cooker, but nonetheless still opted to brown the chicken first for better flavour.

Heat the Basics pepperoni in a pan. Once enough oil has been extracted from the pepperoni add the chicken breasts to the pan, skin-side down, and brown.

Dice the chicken breasts while deglazing the pan with Sainsbury's Basics White Wine.

Wash the rice once. Crumble the now crispy pepperoni into the rice, and add the chicken breasts after dicing, along with diced Basics courgettes. Add the deglazing from the pan, and a generous amount of Basics Hard Cheese.

Fill with Sainsbury's Basics White Wine, such that the water level above the rice and other ingredients is one joint of your index finger. Top up with water if necessary. Cook in rice cooker until done.

The wine dominated the flavour of the rice, so perhaps I should have made up for it by adding more cheese and perhaps other herbs as well. Overall however I am satisfied with how this has turned out and would consider exploring more combinations I could put into the rice cooker.